1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a document management system for managing a large number of documents while ensuring the security at various levels.
2. Description of the Related Art
In document management systems which have been put into practical use, computers manage, in a lump, a numerous number of documents such as various source materials, text, drawings, etc. which are formed by companies, academes, and government and other public offices and if necessary, applicable documents can be searched fast and be re-used (accessed).
However, the above-mentioned documents include various-security-levels documents, e.g., generally published documents or documents for specific members in companies, and documents which permit viewing thereof but inhibit printing thereof or which permit modification of contents thereof or inhibit all modification. There is no original advantage of the document management systems in that necessary documents of a numerous number of ones can be accessed fast if necessary, when the document is required to be accessed, then, the security level of the document is defined, and the access is limited based on this defined result.